I started back to FFXIV on friday just before the patch. I hadn't played since beta. I talked about it a bit at the weekend and a friend picked up a copy to join me. So that's us 2 very new players duoing the low end. We played for around 5 hours last night. We played together and apart as he went to do the story missions as they became available. I think there are improvements to the new player experience but I think there is a long way to go.

Longer fights are good it's not just spam biggest skill and mob dies. They actually had enough HP at all levels for a Duo to need to use skills.
Linking and EXP chains are great.

We started in Limsa and initially we did sheep to lvl 3, then Chigs and then the wheels came off. We had hit 4-5 and we decided to do Leves. At 1 star the mobs are lower level and the EXP is worthless and the rewards are worthless. 18g really? At 3 stars we did an even level Lev but died on the second pack. 2 even level mobs on a gladiator in weathered gear at level 4-5 was horrific. They kill me very very fast but at least I live a while. 2 mobs agro on the conjuror and he explodes. The Conjuror leveled from that leve so for the next we had to go to 4 stars. It was mole patrol. We died on every pack but 1 simply because as a glad I did very little damage and couldn't hold mobs off the Conj. He couldn't nuke them fast enough because of their dive underground thing. We did another Leve after this with no full wipes but still a couple of deaths. Again teh rewards were pityful. I think 186gil was the best of them.

I was a FFXI player who really liked that game but found it hard to get friends involved in it. I was hoping that FFXIV would be a similar level of difficulty while still requiring the grouping and co-ordination that FFXI did so that it had a similar community feel but with a better designed new player experience that would teach people what they needed to know to get on in the world and enjoy what the game has to offer. I think as of 1.19 FF14 is failing at this. As a new player starting pre 1.19 made me feel more like the game was teling me to do the right thing and I was seeing results. Now the game feels like it is actively missleading us as new players.

So moving forward what are our plans.

Gear. Hopefully lvl 6+ equipment will help us even the odds with enemies again. The Leves provide totally inadequate rewards to allow us to buy it from NPCs or market wards right now. In my opinion this is an easy fix for SE. Provide level 6 and 12 gear from vendors or leve quest rewards for DoW players. As it is leves are just not worth doing.

I leveled some crafts with my remaining Leves last night while my friend did the story quests. I plan to make us our lvl 6 gear. This however exposed another flaw in the game to me. Starting out as a crafter with a mental goal of "I want to make gear for my gladiator" is downright retarded. I was able to level miner, botanist, carpenter, blacksmith, and lether worker to 6, 8, 6, 4and 5 respectively in a couple of hours. I have a nice collection of resources BUT. I have no earthly clue how to actually make anything. I had to refer to external sites like ZAM at every turn and they are of course out of date. I have not yet been able to figure out what the new recipies are other than tanning leather and making lumber / planks.

We aim to keep at this and see if we can overcome the newbie period. Our plan going forward is get gear and then go duo links and XP chains. I found some lvl 6, lvl 9 and lvl 11 camps while I was leveling DoH jobs so once we get gear sorted that should provide our leveling route. I'm keeping Leves for crafting as it seem essential to learn it to get gear and they seem worthless for DoW leveling anyway.

So folks. Comments. How does our duo experience end up differing so radically from the guy who soloed lancer to 10 on leves last night, do you think SE should be helping us more or should we just suck it up, does anyone have a list of new recipies for a set of gladiator and Conjuror gear in the new system?

All constructive advice, leveling paths, camp suggestions and recipies welcome. We're on Selbina BTW.